


you're the only place awake for miles

by alright_alright



Series: SP Drabble Bomb May 2018 [2]
Category: South Park
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Best Friends, Break Up, Crushes, Dialogue, Drabble, High School, I Can't Believe I Wrote This, I'm Sorry, Late Night Conversations, Not In a Good Way - Freeform, Oblivious, Pining, Post-Break Up, Sarcasm, Steve Miller's music, craig's pretty nerdy, i think, i think there's some, mopey craig, sorry for the swears, texts, this is kind of funny
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-31
Updated: 2018-05-31
Packaged: 2019-05-16 04:08:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14804067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alright_alright/pseuds/alright_alright
Summary: Craig's not gonna think about him, he's totally not. He just wants his sweatshirt back.(day 3: the ex)





	you're the only place awake for miles

**Author's Note:**

> omg, @blamecanada's drabble thing is really fun, and i'm literally just spending my days typing lol. i should probably try writing for other characters at some point but i love these two way too much to move on yet. this is a little different than i usually do, so, yeah, let me know what you think!
> 
> sorry for the mistakes, also. i tried to edit but my brain's been fuzzy lately. 
> 
> also totally let me know if you hate something or whatever, you honestly won't hurt my feelings. i need honesty, haha. thanks soooo much. <3

Craig feels like screaming right now.

It’s a bubbling idea, waiting in his stomach to lurch up his throat while he walks around at fifteen. Fifteen, he's _fifteen,_ and his life is officially over. It's really a sour sickness that he feels, a bad bug that won't leave, and he caught it from something called rejection. 

Craig's tapping his hands to keep from stomping his feet, or to keep his voice from hollering out,  _where the fuck did_ my  _sweatshirt go?_ But he’s pretty sure that’d be an unreasonable thing to shout at ten at night, to a town that goes to bed at _six,_ and Craig is desperately trying to get his reasonable back.

It's been two weeks. Two weeks. 

Craig should be a  _little_ bit over this breakup. His boyfri--- _ex-_ boyfriend, Craig reminds, knocking his feet against the asphalt. 

Thomas, Thomas is his damn ex now, and Craig just revolved around the guy at one point. Craig even stupidly thought of Thomas as his everything once or twice. 

But not anymore, nope. The _sweatshirt_ is everything, and Thomas is holding it hostage. No, it's so much more than  _everything_. It's soft, and yeah, it's all torn and worn. Craig often hummed along to the Stones' song, _torn and frayed,_  'cause the coat definitely  _has_ seen way better days. It has all those patches he sewed onto it, over the years, and they're the funniest things Craig smiles at when he's alone.

There's even one that says: _don't trust atoms, they make everything up_. 

Don't trust boyfriends, either, they're the ones that make  _everything_ up, and Craig just wanted to live his life simply.

But Craig can't let Thomas win this one. He's the one who cheated, who lied, who dumped Craig, and Craig just wants his sweatshirt back. He doesn't want Thomas back, he just wants the sweatshirt with the _best_ patches. There's this special one on along the left arm, a navy blue little piece of canvas. It's a piece of the night skies, a painted Orion that Tweek did for Craig a few months ago and it glows so prettily in the dark. So Craig would have  _help aiming his camera when he caught stars,_ as Tweek put it.

Craig prays, surprising himself for doing it, but he pleads to the damn baby Jesus that Thomas hasn't ripped off those patches, and that he's not ruining Craig's sweatshirt over their dumb breakup. 

Why's he still so mad? Is he grieving? Does it really go in waves, is this even grief? It's been  _two_ weeks, come on. He needs to move on, he needs to live his life, doesn't he? This is totally not a feeling Craig’s used to having, but he’s already stormed out of his house, walking the town like thunder, waiting for the rain, and he feels like dying a little bit. 

Just a little bit, just enough to know what it feels like, so he can compare notes. 

Today was pretty rough, but Craig's been good at keeping stone-face, he likes to think. Thomas shot down any little bit of communication, and ignored Craig in the halls to the point where Craig's starting to feel invisible. Craig just wants his shit back. Craig saw _her_ , though, this morning. He saw her with these very pretty, sparkling silver glittering nail polish, and he wasn't jealous. Nah. 

Nope, not even when Thomas pulled her to the staircase at lunch.

Craig thinks they can both rot together, and how adorable they'll be. Craig briefly wonders if Thomas will pull her along to hell in the same cheerful, lust-ridden step that Craig rarely saw. 

How did Thomas move on so fucking fast, so easily and breezily, like nothing they did really mattered? How long had it been going on? 

Craig’s not trying to think about how even Thomas’s sandy hair smells like Old Spice and so much Axe, _way_ too much Axe but it's  _Thomas_ , and he’s not trying to think about the feeling of his thin hand, about the look in Thomas’s eyes when he eight months ago, when they had their firs----

And  _oh_ , just cut it out with a knife, why doesn't he? 

 _Dammit,_ Craig’s trying not to think about that shit. Craig just wants his sweatshirt back. That's the goal, but Thomas won’t respond anymore, and goddammit, why is June so cold? June shouldn't have to be cold. Why'd Craig have to be stupid enough to leave his favorite (and only, but that’s besides the point) sweatshirt with a cheating coward who broke up with him over a text message? 

An accident, too, on a Friday night. The worst of nights. Craig remembers it now, flicking through the old texts for about the fifteenth time in two days to see if he can find where it all went wrong.

_heyyy bby when u off work_

Craig worked most weekends at the hardware store, with Clyde. Thomas totally knew that. He rarely visited, not as much as Tweek and even Token did, but Thomas knew Craig worked there Friday nights. 

Craig still responded, so fucking  _stupidly._

_Not til 8. You can come by._

Craig desperately wishes that he never responded to this message. Then, Craig could've stayed in an ignorant bliss that his first crush, his first kiss, the only person that found Craig's awkwardness charming, was honest and still liked him. 

At the very least, he thought Thomas  _liked_  him, once. Enough not to lie, at least. Did he ever find Craig's puns funny? Did he laugh at them, and act stupid just so Craig would do his homework?

_c u soon . kay's rite bby_

Thomas never called Craig  _bby,_ Craig reflects, somewhat pathetically, so what the hell has this  _other_  person got that makes them special enough for that? Did Thomas ever even _like_ him? Thomas could’ve just told Craig, he could’ve just said it outright:  _I want to break up,_  instead of dragging it on for those twenty minutes that Craig wondered obliviously how auto correct managed to mix up Nelson's Hardware with Kay's, because Craig was too blunt to sell sparkling jewelry. 

Craig, though, he's sure that  _her_ nail polish clashes with that jewelry. 

_Nelson's._

People are fucking liars.

Craig waited twenty minutes that day, aware that his phone buzzed a number of times, because he was working and he still had to attend to the old man who wanted to buy a lawn chair before he could stow away to the backroom where the lumber sat.

Those twenty minutes were the most uncomfortable, shaking moments of Craig’s life this far, and the whole wide world can go rot. 

Craig wanders the streets tonight, trying to limit his stomping to  _no_ stomping. He wants to be alone. He  _thinks_ he does, at least, but maybe he just wants to see a friend, the one whose hands are constantly gritty with ground coffee, maybe he just wants to pretend everything’s fine, maybe he just wants to move on, and maybe he just wants _his_ shitback. 

Craig’s fifteen now, it’s nearing eleven at night, and if his mom knew he was out, she’d probably have a coronary. 

But she doesn’t  _have_  to know, not everything, Craig thinks, as his hands try to open the door to a closed coffee shop. It won't budge, though. Craig knows if he stays out here long enough, looking a little miserable, Tweek will eventually find him.

Or he can freeze here, dead by morning or whatever. Tweek would still find him, wouldn't he? Tweek's always good at finding him, Craig thinks, somewhat numbly.

Fuck, it shouldn’t hurt this bad.

Fifteen sucks, being fifteen _really_  blows.

Craig’s thinking about how sleep would be nice, it'd be  _nice_ to dream, and a chance to forget about Thomas because it was almost two goddamn weeks ago, and he really should be over it. He slumps his back against the glass door of the coffee house, below the _cute_  curlicue sign that passive aggressively says  _closed_  from the inside _._

Holy shit, Craig can't believe he's jealous of a cardboard sign. He's sunk  _so_ low.

Maybe Tweek isn’t here tonight. Maybe he's finally rested his blue smudged eyes, and he won't be tired on Monday. Maybe Tweek's done staying up nights talking with afterlife, and the oddities he fills his time with. Craig doesn’t feel like heading home anymore. His steam’s finally ending, and maybe he could visit Kenny to get some cheap booze to stoke the fire, because he's still mad as hell, he's just tired.

Isn't he? 

Except, Craig doesn't think he can handle any of Kenny’s cheap wingman offers tonight. Craig also hasn’t gotten shitfaced before, and he knows brains don’t develop fully until you’re twenty-five, and he could drink this feeling away, but he's positive he'd get addicted, and he'd never grow, and he really desperately needs to mature past fifteen, but that just means it's ten more years of pain like  _this._

Oh, fuck, he's thinking like Tweek now, only, Craig still isn't sure he can handle it. He's been  _so_ good at handling things, though. His parents' divorce, his dad leaving and only visiting once in a while, and Craig's not mad about any of that shit. 

Craig's just pissed at himself, honestly, for thinking he could escape the curse all Tuckers seem to have, for thinking that he had a chance at love. 

Craig totally doesn’t know why he can't handle this - maybe it's just hormones? Biology, shit,  _yeah._ That has to be somewhere in his memory, even though he's always preferred physics to bio. Two weekends ago, when everything was beautiful and Craig was crushing on his boyfriend, he did Thomas’s bio homework for him, and he doesn't remember  _this feeling_  ever being mentioned in those textbooks.

Maybe everything wasn't beautiful. 

Maybe Thomas is just  _Thomas_ , and he’s always been a cheater, and maybe Craig’s only enabled him, and how will Craig  _ever be happy again when he’s the way he is when he’s so annoying and_ boring and uninteresting and no fun, he’s not fun, is he? 

God dammit. He’s always going to be alone, isn’t he?

“Oh, fuck.” Craig mumbles at his revelation, as the door behind him literally opens, and he's overwhelmed with music ringing in his ears. For a fraction of second, he wonders if he's in heaven, but the music isn't angels singing; it's just Steve Miller. It's  _always_ Steve Miller, and if Craig hears  _abra-abra-cadabra_ one more fucking time, he's gonna reach out and grab that cassette. Craig lets himself fall back onto the floor of the coffee house, because if it's Steve Miller singing this loudly, Tweek's the one who opened the door. Craig's not even caring about the gross muddy mat he's landed on. He only shivers a little. 

“A-are you seriously cold?” Tweek rolls his eyes, but Craig just shrugs on the dirty floor. “Sh-shh, we g-gotta, we gotta talk in whispers, okay?” Tweek smells like sandalwood and myrrh incense, Craig notices. Then he wonders _why_ he's noticing that. The ground coffee beans of the shop are so much stronger than Tweek's incense smell. Craig lies on the floor like the selfish asshole he is, like the useless lump of nothing he is, half inside the door and half on the concrete sidewalk out front. “Dude, d-don't just," Tweek groans. "Don't _lie there_ , come in. My parents, man! Th-they’ll, they’ll smell f-fresh air, and I sh-shouldn’t be up so l-late. I'm n-not supposed to be up here this late, alone in the sh-shop.” Tweek hisses, but Craig knows his parents don’t give two shits what Tweek does in his off time, and they could give even less of a crap if Craig’s here.

Hell, they’d probably be happy for more free labor, if Craig felt like moving around.

He doesn’t, though, he’s just a useless sack of flesh and bones right now. 

“What if I’m destined to never be happy?” Craig blurts, while Tweek drags Craig in, and Craig lazily lets it happen. Tweek's hands are strong, Craig notices, and he could pack a punch if he wanted to. He did back in elementary school but that was ages ago. 

Tweek spends most of his time meditating lately, and doing yoga. So, not punching people.

“Oh my g-god,” Tweek groans. “You’re not d-destined to be unhappy.” Tweek huffs, out of breath. He walks back to the door, and shuts it, locking it behind him. He flicks it twice, like he always does. Craig looks at him, lifts his head from the floor.

"Not  _unhappy_ , just never be happy. There's a difference."

"N-not really," Tweek disagrees. "You're g-gonna be happy again."

“No, seriously. I don't think it's going to happen for me. It's over, Tweek.”

“Craig,” Tweek begins, slowly like he’s talking to a child. “You’re f-fifteen.”

“I know," Craig groans, placing his head in his hands. "I'm so very old. You don’t need to rub it in.” 

“ _Ngh,_ no _,_ " Tweek frowns. "You’re s-so, so fucking annoying.”

“Am I?” Maybe that’s why Thomas cheated, maybe it was Craig’s fault all along, and he’ll never get his stupid sweatshirt ba----

“What?” Tweek blinks, startled like a deer, and he sits on the floor. He leans against the glass door, and the sign says  _open_ above him, in a flowering curlicue. “Th-Thomas, he, h-he cheated? On  _y-you_?” Tweek stammers. 

“Oops.” Craig slips, annoyed at his tongue, his  _dumb_  tongue and his thoughts, and all of his other faults, like his crooked teeth, and  _god_ , Craig’s so ugly when he smiles, isn’t he?

Tweek gets up, starts pacing slightly, but Craig occupies this time by watching the ceiling, and keeps his fucked up teeth behind his mouth. The ceiling’s got decals on it, baroque carvings around the edges, and it’s an ivory place that glows so much better in the orange night of June. Craig never noticed that. He should lie on floors more often.

“Why didn’t y-you,” Tweek begins, but it falls flat, and he shakes his head because he knows the answer. Tweek turns down his stereo, and Steve Miller sings a little softer. “Hey.” Tweek begins again, with eyes wide like he’s trying to figure out how to make Craig feel better, but he doesn’t know what to do. Craig doesn’t really blame him, honestly, because he can’t think of anything that would make him feel all that much better. 

Well, besides his sweatshirt. 

"Hey." Craig say back, lowly, and Tweek’s at his side, sitting crosslegged, shuffling some paper or something around. Craig’s curious, but he keeps his eyes at the ceiling because Thomas has his heart, anyway, and there’s nothing left but this shell. 

“Ask m-me, a, uh,” Tweek’s probably tucking his hair behind his ear, or  _trying_  to, but Craig doesn’t look. “A question.”

“About what?”

“T-try again,” Tweek commands. Craig flounders, and he spares Tweek a glance. Tweek's laying out a deck of funny-looking cards, and Craig furrows his brows. “Tarot.” Tweek tells him, noticing his curiosity. Craig glares back at the ceiling. 

“I’m not stupid.” But Craig feels like he’s lying to himself, because he kind of  _is_ stupid for letting this happen. 

“I know y-you’re not! Wh-why,  _jesus,_ ” Tweek grips at his neck, a coping mechanism he’s been trying so he doesn’t grip his hair. This makes him clench his jaw, too, and Craig doesn’t get why Tweek's nervous. It’s only  _Craig_. They’ve only been friends since they were  _ten_ , like,  _fuck_. Chill, dude. “Why d-do you think I, I always a-ask you for h-help in Chemistry?” Craig doesn’t really have a good answer for that, so he just flips Tweek off. Tweek doesn’t seem offended, and Craig’s pretty comforted by that, so he leaves his middle finger up. “Uh huh,” Tweek says. “Th-that make you f-feel better?”

“Kind of. Like,” Craig sighs. “Fucking sunshine.”

“Sounds painful,” Tweek says, softly, after debating it. Craig laughs at this, but he’s still trying not to let his teeth show. “Ask me a q-question.”

“When will I die?” 

“No, l-like," Tweek rolls his eyes. " _That's,_ th-that's too morbid. You can't, you c-can't ask the cards for anything like that. What's the point? You can't ch-change shit about that.” Craig always gets an uncomfortable feeling in his chest whenever Tweek talks so flippantly about fate. 

“What are you? What's the point of what _you're_ doing right now?” Craig bites. "How is this helpful?" 

“Come on, d-dude.” Tweek says, sighing, and shifting through Craig's bullshit to get to his truth. 

“Okay, fine," Craig says, rolling his eyes. "Will Thomas ever give me my sweatshirt back?”  _And my heart,_ Craig thinks bitterly because he’s  _fifteen_ and this fucking hurts. 

“No, it has t-to be about you. Not Thomas's,” Tweek flinches. "N-not his actions." 

“Well, why don’t you just ask a damn question, then, Tweek.” 

“I don’t n-need any guidance t-tonight!” 

"Parents," Craig reminds, and Tweek knocks his cards together, hushing. “And I do?”

"D-do _what_?"

"Need, uh," Craig gestures towards the cards. " _Guidance_ , or what the hell you said." 

“D-dude, you,” Tweek gives Craig a  _are you shitting me look_ while his eye flinches. “You fucking child. Yes, you need h-help.”

“What makes you think that?” Craig asks, completely aware of his lungs that fail him as he stares at the murky ceiling from the floor of a coffeehouse, lacking his favorite sweatshirt. 

“Okay.” Tweek says, looking up at the ceiling, like he’s agreed to something Craig was not aware of. Craig follows his gaze with furrowed brows, but sees nothing. Tweek gets a dazed look, like he's talking to something otherworldly, something Craig couldn't reach even if he fully believed in anything. "Okay." Tweek says again, in the same biting tone. 

“ _What_? The fuck are you talking to, man?” 

“You d-don’t have to ask the question out loud," Tweek says, directing his gaze back on Craig. "J-just, just think about it, and I’ll flip the cards.”

“How do I get my sweatshirt back?” Craig asks, so Tweek doesn’t flip the cards. He just smiles, and gets up. Craig glares at the ceiling. Tweek waves his hand around when he comes back, with a stack of comic books. 

“Here.” Tweek says, tossing them at Craig. They unfurl like flags in the wind when they fall, landing on Craig's stomach. Tweek looks at Craig, and his eyes are nothing that Craig's seen before. 

Well, for the last five years, Craig's seen those blue eyes, but still. The look's kind of new, or maybe, Craig's bad at noticing the small things. Maybe there were hints all along the way, too, with Thomas, that he really didn't want to be with Craig, and Craig never noticed.

“What.” Craig deadpans, with a cough.

“Give m-me your phone.” 

“No way.” There are way too many embarrassing, awful things that Craig has written to Thomas over the past eight months. He thought it was gonna last, he was so sure it was going to last. Tweek looks at him so intense, and Craig's positive that Tweek sees everything wrong with him in this moment, why Thomas  _did_ cheat.

“If y-you,” Tweek begins, face growing red, or maybe it’s the light. “If you d-don’t, I’ll take it from you,” Tweek threatens, and Craig scoffs. Tweek raises his eyebrows. “What? Y-you really don’t think I know your ticklish sp-spots? Fold, fool.” Tweek demands, confidently, and Craig really doesn’t want Tweek to see his fucked up teeth, for some reason, even more than he doesn’t want Tweek to read his texts so he just hands up the phone. 

“Passcode’s 0---”

“---I know y-your passcode.” 

“Oh.” Craig says, because he’s not sure what to do with that. Tweek gets panicked for a second, after he types in the code.

“ _J-Jesus_ , it’s not, I'm n-not c-creeping on you. Y-you, you told m-me.” 

“I did?”

“Y-yeah, a few years ago."  

"You remembered?"

"I mean, it’s Stripe’s birthday. You’re s-so basic.” 

“Oh. Cool.” Craig says, because Thomas never even really cared for Stripe. Said he peed too much. Craig should've dumped him over that. Tweek's only got the good words for Stripe and oh, wait, why’s Craig comparing Tweek to Thomas? That’s so, so inappropriate. 

Tweek's incense are something like myrrh, amber, quite gingery and sweet, the smell is way less overpowering than the Axe and Old Spice Thomas used to wear anyway. 

God, brain, shut up.

Tweek’s flicking through his messages now, and Craig knows what he’s reading. Craig can’t bring himself to delete them. 

It’s sickening, really, and Craig thinks he likes the messages between him and Tweek much better. They’re much more honest:

_are youu up??_

_Oh, just kill me._

_then i’d have to have a seance ask  those are soft eking hard_

_why do young adie?_

_are you app the?_

_divea_

_Tweek, for fuck’s sake, you gotta learn to type better, buddy._

_Just get a smartphone so you can use Siri or something._

  _& risk eavesdropping the goovermnet!!! no way_  

_I don’t think the “goovermnet” has the time to decipher your words, man._

_Siri’s just a robot, anyway._

_youte not makiing a good case ais fuckin creepey_

_Why are you texting me?_

_cuz_

_youre the only place awke for miles_

_Wrong number. I'm asleep._

Shit, the messages between him and  _Clyde_ are even more engaging:

_yo dude cover my shift_

_Sure._  

Craig was trying too hard to be a good boyfriend, to do what he was supposed to, and he thought that meant letting Thomas do whatever he wanted. It meant sending him sappy shit constantly, telling Thomas how much he meant to him, how his universe was incomplete without him, yadah yadah, whatever. Thomas always sent it back, though. He always seemed happy about it, and he said he liked Craig's texts.

But they're awfully shallow, awfully boring, Craig thinks now.

The most thought-provoking text between him and his boyfr--- _ex-_ boyfriend, Craig reminds himself numbly, is probably the one where Thomas wrote: 

_heyyy bby_

And it wasn’t meant for Craig. That still stings, still burns in his stomach. 

It’s really stupid, though, isn’t it? That’s so few letters to be _this_ torn up over. Craig really wants his fucking sweatshirt back, and he’s sure it smells like Thomas’s overbearing Axe, and lies, too, but you know. 

It’s still _Craig's_ sweatshirt. 

" _You make m-me so happy.'_ ," Tweek recites, in his best impression of Craig's monotone, but he only lowers his voice, and Craig cringes. His face is tasting flames, he's probably redder than ever, so he's glad Tweek's only got the light to the backroom on. "Like, f-fuck, Craig." Tweek whispers, his normal croak.

"I know, I know. It's sappy. I was trying." Craig grumbles.

"You s-sound like a serial killer." If Tweek's anything, he's beautifully honest. What the hell, _beautiful_ is not a word Craig should use right now, not to describe his best friend. Focus on the sweatshirt. Focus on the sweatshirt. Also, send a big _fuck off_ to Tweek, 'cause that was romantic poetry Craig wrote, right there. 

"I don't sound like a serial killer." 

"Yeah, y-you do. The punctuation, it's, it's scary."

"Gee, thanks." Craig groans. Tweek bites his lip, realizing he's gone a little far, maybe. 

"Thomas is an," Tweek squints, he sighs, and closes his eyes. "He's an a-asshole, man. You know I'm," Tweek gives a half frown. "I'm j-just joking, right? You're n-not a serial killer, I m-mean, you don't sound like one. I was j-just kidding, man."

"No, you're not," Craig says. "And that's okay," Craig finds himself saying. "Please don't lie to me." Tweek sighs at the sound of Craig's voice, and taps Craig's knuckles nervously with a gulp. Craig furrows his eyes. "What?" He asks. 

"Oh,  _god,_ " Tweek says, squeezing his eyes so tight that Craig's afraid they're gonna burst. "Pinky swear!" He blurts, loudly.

"What?"

"I, I promise I w-won't lie, so, um, p-pinkies?"

"Alright." Craig agrees, slowly, as he holds out his pinky, supremely cautious. 

"O-okay," Tweek whispers, wrapping his pinky finger, super strong, all around Craig's. Craig's impressed in some distant way, but mostly alarmed that they haven't done this in years. He'd remember Tweek's strength, he knows he would. Tweek moves their hands to shake, and Craig lets him do it pretty limply. "Now I can go," Tweek mumbles, and he's got a sudden spark of energy. Craig wonders if Tweek's reaped in some of Craig's life, 'cause Craig doesn't feel like moving from the floor. He feels like stone. “Read th-those,” Tweek says, pointing to the comics. Craig hasn’t bothered looking at them, and Steve Miller's still singing on, only he's louder. “I’ll be back, I swear, b-before you’re done.”

“What?” Craig asks, in a somewhat anxious tone he’s not used to having. 

“Read those,” Tweek repeats, slower. “And I’ll c-come back before you’ll even m-meet Apollo.” 

“Apollo?” Craig asks, slightly intrigued, thumbing through the comics. Tweek grins, nodding. 

“Y-yeah, thought you’d like that. He’s s-super gay, uh, too.” 

“Hey, Tweek,” Craig says fondly as he sticks his middle finger up. “Right here, buddy,” Tweek looks away, smiling to himself. “Where are you going?” Tweek shrugs, and gets up, heading to the door. He reaches above, as high as he can, and stretches until he pulls down a silver little bell. “What are you doing?” Craig asks. Tweek holds his finger to his mouth, a hush face. 

"Oh, now you got all the q-questions?" Tweek retorts, shaking his head. Craig glares, so Tweek smiles. “I’m th-the answer to your prayers, m-man. Have faith.” Tweek says, cheekily, and he leaves through the door, clicking it silent.

And then, Craig's alone, not really sure if Tweek's parents will think he's breaking and entering, if they wander down to the shop, but also not really caring so long as he doesn't have to move. He's alone, stuck thinking about the asshole who didn’t even have the decency to send Craig any other more words than: 

_i break up_

Why did Tweek have to leave Steve Miller on? Now he's singing _the joker_ , and Craig wishes that some people would call him a space cowboy, instead of Steve Miller, but it's fleeting thought, and Craig doesn't possibly comprehend why he wants  _that._

Also,  _i break up_ , what are they, in elementary school? 

Craig took two days to respond, and those were two miserable days that he wasted alone. He finally wrote: 

_I want my sweatshirt back._

Craig doesn't know what time it is anymore, but he does know that school is gonna be in another eight hours, and he's going to have to face the day as bravely as he can. It's embarrassing to walk in, and it still hurts, stings a bit, when he sees Thomas hold her hand, say things he rarely said to Craig. 

Tweek painted on the sweatshirt, though, and it was a sweet, special thing. He never should've let Thomas borrow it, but the dopamine was running like crazy in his brain, and Craig was still feeling the high, even if Thomas never really had it. 

The glass door opens, and Craig thinks that was _fast_  when Tweek appears, valiantly wearing Craig's fucking sweatshirt. Craig's overwhelmed, alarmed, impressed, and full of questions. 

"Hey." Tweek says, out of breath. He eyes the street cautiously. 

"So fast." Craig mumbles, awed and shamelessly amazed with his best friend. Tweek has a funny quirk to his eyebrows, but he shakes it off.

"S-so, you need to get up, and we need to shut up." 

"What did you do?" 

"Shh!" Tweek shushes. 

"How'd you get that back?" Craig whispers, getting up, and feeling the world spin with him. Tweek pushes him towards the backroom, and where the stereo's still been blaring Steve Miller's greatest hits, and Craig really wants to rip the fucking tape out the deck right about now. Craig holds onto the jacket, and it smells like Thomas's overwhelming Axe. Craig motions for Tweek to turn around so he can count the patches. "Fourteen," Craig grins at Tweek. "Fourteen. Tweek! The fucker didn't do it!"  

"Craig! Don't shout!"

"I'm not shouting. I'm laughing, buddy," Craig says, through a number of grins, too overjoyed at seeing his sweatshirt to give a shit about his fucked up teeth. "Can't you tell me how the fuck you did this? Did you break in?" Tweek giggles, still out of breath, staring at Craig's smile like maybe his teeth aren't a problem. 

But that's Craig probably being lame, 'cause they're totally crooked. 

"No," Tweek says, swallowing, shaking his head. "Sorry, man. H-have faith in me, yeah? Why'd you think h-he was gonna mess this up, anyway?" 

"I don't know," Craig says, frowns, as he watches the Orion that Tweek painted for him glow under his fingertips. Tweek's breathing so fast, like a humming bird, and he must've run _far_ to get this back. "I told him to go to hell."

"That's p-pretty mild." 

"Have you been to hell, Tweek? It doesn't sound mild," Tweek rolls his eyes. "Why are we hiding? How'd you get this?" Craig touches the sweatshirt as Tweek peeks his head around the corner, looks out the shop window, but the street's just as still as it's ever been. Craig knows this look. Tweek won't be answering any of Craig's pressing questions.

"Still think you're d-destined to be unhappy?" Tweek manages to snap, without much of a stutter. Craig doesn't really feel like screaming anymore, so that's an improvement, and he's not tapping his hands to keep his feet from stomping, either. 

It's been two weeks. _Two_ weeks is nothing in high school, right? But it's everything in heartbreak, and it's probably not long enough to be completely over the comfort Craig thought he had with Thomas. 

Craig should be a  _little_ bit over it, at least, and maybe he's getting there because all he wants right now is for Tweek to take off his sweatshirt so he can wash it, so Tweek doesn't cover up his quiet myrrh and sandalwood scent.

The coffee shop already smells too strongly, and Craig can't place why, but he doesn't want Tweek to get too lost. 


End file.
